Proteus in the Underworld

CHAPTER 22

“What you are telling me,” said Sondra, “is that the humanity tests are no damned good.”

“Not quite that.” The fast-moving skimmer was approaching Wolf Island, and Bey was squinting ahead in the late afternoon sun for a first sight of home. “It’s fine in almost every case; but occasionally, maybe one time in a billion, it misses. The trouble is, when it does fail it’s in the worst possible way.”

“Humans are judged non-human?”

“Right. I mean, it’s no big deal if an occasional feral form is passed as human, like the ones in the colonies. That’s a pretty trivial problem.”

Bey ignored Sondra’s outraged gasp of protest. A lopsided pyramid of rock had come into view, jutting above the swelling ocean surface, and he was staring at it with satisfaction.

“It’s the other way round that’s intolerable,” he continued. “Babies, genuine humans with unusual talents and mental powers, dumped into the organ banks. They have odd psych profiles, and when they’re different enough to exceed program tolerances the test judges them non-human.”

“But if that’s true how come no one has ever noticed?” The idea of babies slaughtered and dissected for the organ banks sent chills up Sondra’s spine. “I mean, you’re saying these are unusually smart people.”

“They are. But they’re babies. They never have a chance to prove themselves. And if they were the smartest people in the world, how would we recognize their absence? It’s hard to notice what isn’t there.” Beys manner had become unusually grim. As the skimmer docked the two hounds stood at the jetty, wagging their tails madly. But Bey fondled their heads absently and led the way straight toward the house.

“Lop the top-end tail off the distribution of human intelligence and creativity,” he went on, “and it would make no measurable difference to the population. Only one person in a billion is out beyond the six-sigma level. That’s what we’re talking about here, But eventually those one-in-a-billion make a huge difference. Ninety-five percent of all human progress comes from less than one thousandth of one percent of the population.”

To Sondra, he was suddenly nervous as she had never seen him before. On the journey back from Melford Castle he had become increasingly serious and preoccupied. He had refused to tell her what came next, answering her questions only with a terse, “Wait and see.”

Could it be his vow to have Denzel Morrone fired as head of the Office of Form Control? Sondra had been dreading her own next meeting with Morrone—she had disobeyed his direct orders-but it was hard to believe that Bey had any such worries. Trudy Melford had promised Bey anything he asked, and she had such political clout that the dismissal of a medium-level official from a government department ought to be child’s play to her.

But if it wasn’t that, then what was it?

Bey was heading downstairs and straight for his communications center. He nodded to Jumping Jack Flash, who peered up at him with perplexed brown eyes as Bey at once sat down and entered a call sequence unfamiliar to Sondra.

“I’m afraid we have to wait a while,” he said. “Maybe three hours or more. Why don’t you help yourself to some food, or have—”

Bey paused. The terminal was already flashing a response. While Sondra was still wondering who—or what—could be three hours’ signal time away and yet provide an instant reply, the image display area came alive. She found herself staring at a familiar figure. There was no mistaking the massive head with its ropy strands of hair and luminous eyes.

Bey seemed even more surprised than she was. “How the devil can you—”

Capman’s head bobbed forward, in the Logian smile. “No magic today, Behrooz Wolf. Not even unfamiliar science. I have been expecting and waiting for your call.”

“But where are you?”

“Very close by—look up to your north, and you could in principle see my ship. I am parked in Earth geostationary orbit.”

“You couldn’t possibly know that I wanted to speak to you!”

“I made no such statement. Perhaps it was I who wished to speak with you.” The Logian’s face was quite unreadable, at least to Sondra. “However, your last remark suggests that you in fact do wish to talk with me. I am curious to learn the subject.”

“I don’t believe that. I believe you already know very well why I placed my call.”

“If that is the case, then there can be no possible reason for delaying discussion.” The great head bowed forward to Bey and Sondra. “I await your remarks with interest.” Bey bowed in return and stayed with head bent for a long time. At last he sighed and straightened.

“This will be more questions than comments. But first let me tell you what I know. You are familiar with the Mars terraforming operation, to make the planet more like Earth?”

“The whole solar system is aware of it.”

“Right. But I said familiar with it. Most people know about the project the way I did before I went to the Mars Underworld. Superficially. In other words, they don’t really think about it at all.”

“Assume that I am, as you put it, familiar with the project.”

“Then lets get right to the central question: Who is paying for the terraforming effort? Someone pays for everything, no matter what the project is.”

“The terraforming project is funded by the Old Mars policy group, seeking to fulfill the intent of the Mars Declaration.”

“That’s what everyone believes. But that’s not really an answer, is it? The cost of a full- scale terraforming project is prodigious—everything from purchase of Cloudland comet fragments, to the flying of the volatiles to Mars impact, to the creation and use of bespoke organisms for the absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide and release of bound oxygen. The Old Mars contingent is wealthy by Mars standards, but nowhere near rich enough to pay for everything that’s going on.

“As soon as I had been out on the surface of Mars and seen the scale of the operation for myself, I had my doubts. I wondered if maybe BEC had a hand in it somewhere. The company could afford such a thing if it decided it was important enough to BEC operations.

“But I couldn’t make sense of that, either. First of all, Trudy Melford went to Mars only recently, three years ago, and for reasons nothing to do with terraforming.”

“Reasons which I presume that you now understand.” The Logian stared curiously at Sondra, standing by Bey’s side. “May I ask, did you make that deduction, Miss Dearborn?”

“Not really.” Sondra stared back, and wondered to what extent that hulking form in its methane—rich atmosphere was still the human Robert Capman. “I got part of it right—a little bit.”

“You got most of it,” Bey corrected. “And Sondra would have deduced the rest if she had been able to look at Errol Melford’s picture, as I did, in Trudy’s private quarters at Melford Castle. But don’t let me get sidetracked. Trudy went to Mars long after the terraforming effort was started. Also, she has a real interest in the surface forms, and BEC’s commercial gain would be maximized if the terraforming stopped, because if Mars becomes like Earth anyone can live on the surface without needing form-change. The modification developed by Georgia Kruskal is able to colonize the surface as it is today, but only with extensive and continuing use of form-change equipment.

“So I had a mystery. But I still didn’t rule out BEC funding for the Old Mars efforts, because Trudy seemed so oddly sympathetic to them. We found out why when we learned about Errol Melford. And that was when Trudy, with no more reason to lie about it, flatly denied that she was funding the Old Mars terraforming project.

“Dead end. But somebody was pouring resources into changing Mars to be like Earth. Who was it? Who had the resources? An even better question, who had the motive?

“You can count the candidate groups on one hand. First, Earth could do it. They have the money, and they would quite like Mars to become another Earth. New land, new living space, a new sphere of influence. But I’m in the heart of Earth’s information networks, and there’s no way that anything this size could be happening without my learning of it. So I had to cross Earth off the list.

The Cloudlanders have the economic clout, too, and they also have access to free comet fragments. But they look down their noses at anything going on in the inner system, Mars or Earth or any place else. The same is true of the Kernel Ring and the Kuiper Belt. To all of them, everything inside the orbit of Pluto is old, dull, and decadent. Nothing would be less interesting than the conversion of one inner planet to be like another one.

“I seemed to have run out of answers. No one had both means and motive. But then I thought again. There is one group in the solar system whose powers sometimes seem just about limitless, and whose motives I have never been able to fathom. I wondered, what about the Logian forms, hidden beneath the shroud of Saturn’s atmosphere? Weren’t they a candidate, too?”

Capman was shaking his head. “You know Logian stated policy: we do not interfere in the affairs of humans.”

“I do know your stated policy. And I know that you have always been very careful to phrase it just that way when we have spoken together. ‘Logian stated policy’—but not necessarily Logian actual policy. As for your opportunities to influence human actions, I can suggest three or four ways you might funnel resources into any solar system activity that you choose—and still have the final recipient unaware of the source.

“So it seemed to me that the means were there. The thing missing was motive. Logians can’t survive on either Mars or Earth. Why would they choose to help Old Mars in its efforts to terraform the planet?

“I couldn’t answer that question. But it suggested another idea: If the Logians were favoring the Mars terraforming efforts, that action opposed Georgia Kruskals desire to keep the surface just the way that it is. She can live there without a suit, in today’s conditions—provided that she has continuing access to form-change equipment. And that led me to one more thought: the people of every inhabited world in the system make use of form-change, but usually they do not depend on it. Everywhere, on every major body from Europa to Cloudland, the natural environment of each world is being changed so that humans can live there in their original form, without dependence on form-change. People in Cloudland choose to adopt a different shape, but that’s for convenience, not necessity. I have been to Cloudland, just as I am, and managed very well. But I couldn’t survive on the surface of Mars for five minutes. Unless it is terraformed, any human living there will depend on the use of form-change every day, just to remain alive.”

Bey paused, as though he had arrived at some profound and significant conclusion. Sondra, listening closely, could not begin to guess what it might be. And yet watching the body language of Bey Wolf and Robert Capman, it was clear to her that a crucial moment had been reached. The style of their interaction had changed. Bey was leaning forward expectantly, while Capman was nodding slowly in a gesture not at all like the bobbing motion of the Logian smile.

And when he finally spoke, it sounded like a total change of subject. “Behrooz Wolf.” The deep voice was slow and sad. “You have known me for many, many years. How would you describe my work, and its relationship to the science of purposive form-change?”

If the question surprised Bey, he did not show it. He replied at once. “You nave contributed more than anyone in the whole field since the original work of Ergan Melford, two hundred and fifty years ago. Until you adopted the Logian form and moved to Saturn, your whole life’s work revolved around the theory and practice of purposive form-change.”

“Very well. And your work?”

“I won’t try to estimate the value of what I’ve done. Someone else should make that assessment. But I can honestly say that for more than half a century I have worked constantly on form-change problems; and nothing else in my life has been as important to me as that effort.”

“We seem to be in total agreement. We have each devoted most of our lives to the same single end: the advancement of purposive form-change techniques. We have each—despite your modesty—made deep and far-reaching contributions to the subject, more than any other living persons.” Capman’s massive head lifted, and he stared straight at Bey. “So you, Behrooz Wolf, will find it as disturbing as I did, when I realized that purposive form-change, in widespread, necessary, and universal use, poses a great and terrible threat to the future of humanity. Does that answer your question?”

The gasp came from Sondra, not from Bey. He sat totally silent and still as Capman continued: “I should add that my interest in form-change work and its effects did not cease when I assumed the Logian form. We Logians are not human in appearance, and we sometimes appear to have superhuman powers; but in our concerns we remain all human. And we operate with a very long time-frame.”

“You say it’s a threat.” Bey spoke in a low voice and his face had become paler than usual. “I don’t see why. Form-change has done more good for more people than any other discovery in history. I’m not talking about trivial nonsense like cosmetic change, I mean the important things like birth defect correction and medical treatment and healthy old age.”

“All hugely important, and all hugely valuable. But not the whole story.” Capman swung to face Sondra.

“Miss Dearborn, you visited the Fugate Colony. Do you think you could mate with a Fugate?”

“Never.” Sondra recalled the lumbering seventy-foot tall figures. “I mean, I didn’t actually see their sex organs, but if they’re anything like in proportion … Anyway, they were repulsive. I wouldn’t want to mate with one of them, even if I could.”

“Which is perhaps of far greater practical importance.” Capman turned back to Bey. “You have heard the modern dictum, echoed throughout the solar system: Easier to change people than planets. With today’s form-change methods that is certainly true. As Georgia Kruskal is demonstrating, forms can be created that thrive in extreme natural environments. But the idea of matching people to settings neglects a profound problem. The celestial bodies of the solar system display an amazing diversity, in atmosphere, gravity, composition, temperature, and size. If humans seek to adapt to each situation, the inhabitants of each world will diverge from every other.

“The long-term effect of such a divergence has been known since the time of Darwin and Wallace. It is termed speciation. Today, humans constitute a single species. At some time in the far future there could be many; different in size and form and function, fragmented in purpose, unable and unwilling to interbreed. And all thanks to the use of purposive form- change. If such a future is to be avoided, currently accepted thinking must change. It must become: Better to change planets than people. Terraform Mars and Europa, as is happening today. Terraform Venus, terraform Titan, terraform Oberon, terraform Triton, terraform the worldlets of the Kuiper Belt and Cloudland. Modify environments. And by doing so, allow humanity to continue as a single species.”

“While you do your best to prevent further advances in form-change?” Bey stood up. “I know exactly what you’re saying, and I understand its importance. But it has other implications. You are telling me to abandon everything I have worked for all my life. You are suggesting that instead of helping Georgia Kruskal, I should try to destroy the sort of progress that she is making on Mars.”

“No, I do not suggest that.” Capman s voice was gentle. “I am here to suggest something quite different; something I have urged before, but never so strongly. Come with me, Behrooz Wolf. Change to a Logian form. Be blessed with the augmented Logian faculties. And comprehend, as you will never comprehend in human form, the whole canvas of the problem I describe. There will have to be, as you say, great changes in purposive form- change. Some of them, from the standard human perspective, may appear to be regressive. They are not, but while you remain in human form they will seem so. I do not ask you to undo or fight against your and my life’s work. Rather, I ask you to view that work in a broader context, to elevate it to a new and higher level. I ask you to join me on Saturn, and work with me there. Will you do it?”

“No. Maybe. God, I don’t know.” Bey stared sightlessly around the room, looking right through Sondra. “I have to think through all this. Changing form-change. Maybe abandoning form-change. I have to think. And I have to get some fresh air.”

He headed for the stairs. Jumping Jack Flash, who had been sitting all the time at Sondra’s feet, stood up and scuttled after him. The house’s outer door slammed shut.

Sondra turned to glare accusingly at Robert Capman. “I’ve never seen Bey like this before. He’s unbelievably upset.”

“Inevitably, and naturally. As I suspected when I flew to Earth, Behrooz Wolf had come so far in his own deductions that there was no alternative to telling him the truth. And there was also no way to make that truth palatable to someone so intimately involved in form- change development.” Capman’s luminous eyes burned into Sondra’s. “I have a question for you, Miss Dearborn. Why were you present when Behrooz Wolf initiated this conversation with me?”

Again it seemed like a total change of subject. Sondra stared at the Logian in perplexity.

“Why was I here? I don’t know. I guess Bey wanted me here. He invited me, told me to come back from Mars with him, but I had no idea why. Is it relevant?”

“It is more than relevant. It is crucial. He wanted you to know of his own deductions, and also he wanted you to learn whatever he might find out from me about the reasons for Logian involvement on Mars.”

“So he wanted me to know. I still don’t see what that has to do with anything.” Sondra stood up abruptly. “And at the moment I don’t have time to share your worry about the long-term future of humanity. I’m worried about now. I’m worried about Bey. I’m going to see what’s happening to him.”

She ran for the stairs. The Logian, stolid and apparently unruffled, remained at his ship’s communications console. “Take your time,” he called after her. “There is no need to rush back.”

Outside it was almost dark, a warm, soft twilight in which the first stars were appearing. Sondra paused close to the front of the house and stared around her. The island was not all that big but Bey could have gone anywhere for solitude, to the top of the rocky central upthrust or down along the seashore. She would never find him by sight as it grew darker. She could shout and holler, but she was sure he would not like that. It also did not fit her own uneasy mood. The weather was flat calm, but her nerves were jangling as though a big thunderstorm was on the way.

She stood still and listened. The night sounds of the island were beginning. Faint rustles of small lizards and large insects, the former pursuing the latter through the undergrowth. The murmur of small waves ascending the sandy beach. A rush of night wings, as bats and small birds flitted above her head in their hunt for moths and gnats; and, far-off to the left, a muted whine of protest.

Sondra at once headed that way. She had heard that sound before—Janus and Siegfried, waiting impatiently and voicing their complaint until Bey threw the stick or ball out into the shallow water.

He was sitting down when she came up to him, perched on a jagged rock that had to be less than comfortable. She sat down cross-legged on the sand at his side. “You don’t have to do it, you know,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to take any notice of him at all.”

He did not look round, but stared out across the quiet water. It had the oil-black gleam that Sondra remembered from her first visit to Wolf Island. The slow ripples that crept up the beach were tiny. She counted them—one, two, three, up and back. About five seconds between successive waves.

“He traveled all the way from Saturn just to talk to me,” Bey replied at last. “A Logian, coming to see a human. It’s unheard of. I owe him an answer.”

“Then give him one. Tell him no. Tell him you are retired.” Sondra placed her hand gently on Bey’s thigh. “You’ve had experience with that particular line, haven’t you? Or tell him that you believe he is wrong.”

“Sure. Except that I don’t. He’s right.” The dogs ran up from the water to shake themselves and shower the two humans with salt spray. Bey did not even flinch.

“Do you know,” he went on, “what Capman said to me wasn’t even a surprise. I’d had the thought myself, but I always suppressed it as personal heresy: Purposive form-change runs contrary to evolution. We change to match a different environment, but it isn’t a genetic change. We don’t become any better suited to living in a place, generation by generation, the way that all of Nature adapts to its surroundings. In the far future, humans might evolve by natural selection until they could live on Mars as it is today. But they won’t do it as long as we have form-change.”

“So make that point to people, Bey. Tell them. Use the insight to change the way we think of and apply form-change. You can do it, if anyone can. But don’t run away to Saturn, not when you are needed here on Earth. You think Denzel Morrone has to be kicked out of the Office of Form Control, and I agree. But who will take over from him?”

“Not me. I worked my shift.”

“Other people won’t want to hear that. You’d be my first choice, the absolute best person.” Sondra listened to her own words, and was surprised by the passion in them. “Not that anyone is going to ask my opinion, I know that. I’m a peon. But you’re not. Even if it’s only for a little while, you ought to help out when Morrone goes.”

“Capman thinks that I should help, too—on Saturn.”

“Yes. And you know why?” Sondra felt a faint itch inside her, a mixture of anger and impatience. “It’s because he wants you there for himself. He likes you. You have a lot of common interests and he loves to talk to you. You are the only person in the solar system who reaches Capman whenever you like. He wants you there on Saturn for his sake, not yours or mine. Aybee says that Capman doesn’t normally ask people to become a Logian until they’re mentally past it, and you’re nowhere near that.”

“Aybee is wrong, Sondra. I love him like a son, and on the right subjects he’s the smartest being in the solar system; but sometimes he’s an idiot. You’ve heard Capman—did you think for one second that he is past it?”

“He’s old. Well over a century.”

“And he hasn’t lost a stroke. I’m not in Capman’s league, Sondra, but I’m getting old too.”

“Now that’s nonsense!” Bey was facing her, but in the dark she could make out his face only as a pale oval. She wished that she could see his eyes. “You’re getting older,” she went on, “but so am I. We’re all doing that, every day. You pretend to be old, but it’s all a big put-on, part of your act. Anyone who spends time with you soon realizes that you have more curiosity and energy than a teenager. Mary Walton and Sylvia Fernald certainly didn’t think you were old where it mattered.”

“Now where the devil did you hear those names?” Bey was silent for a moment, then he laughed into the darkness. “Aybee.”

“Who else? ‘The Wolfman and his bimboes.’ ”

“I’ll kill him. Anyway, that was a long time ago.”

“Four years, if you call that a long time. I don’t. But Trudy Melford wasn’t a long time ago, she was yesterday. And she made her views clear enough: you can have her and everything she possesses. You’ll never convince me she was talking about money. She doesn’t think you’re old and ready to be put out to pasture. Out to stud, maybe.”

Sondra felt the muscles of Bey’s thigh tighten under her hand. It was a long time—three waves to the shore before he said: “She was just trying to tell me how grateful she is for what I did for her son.”

“Sure. You think that if you choose to, but I know better. Trudy meant exactly what she said.” Sondra felt the level of emotion flare inside her. “Listen, give her half a chance and she’d just love to jump your bones. Try telling her that you are too old, once she gets her hot little hands on you. See how much it slows her down.” She had told Robert Capman that she was coming outside to learn what was happening to Bey Wolf. Now Sondra was beginning to wonder what was happening to her. The internal pressure was rising.

And worst of all, Bey was laughing again. This time he was making no sound, but she could feel it in his thigh muscles. She snatched her hand away from his leg. “What did I say now that’s so funny? I’m being serious here.”

“Sorry. It’s just the alien idea of Bey Wolf as a sex object. I’m not used to that. I guess it really is time I went to Saturn, before women start to swarm all over me.”

“I don’t want you to go.” Sondra suddenly realized what she did want. “I want you to stay on Earth, and it has nothing to do with form-change or who runs the Office of Form Control. You keep saying you’re getting old, but you’ll be around for at least another fifty years. Half a century is enough time for a lot of excitement and a lot of fun. I’m going to quote one of your fusty old dead poets at you—and don’t dare ask me how many hours I’ve wasted reading the stuff since we first met, because I’m not going to tell you. Remember this?: Grow old alone with me, the best is yet to be; the last of life, for which the first was made. In case you don’t recognize what you’re hearing, I’ll spell it out. Bey, this is a proposition.”

He sat rigid. He did not move, he did not speak. Sondra waited, breathless. Her own words had surprised her, uttered before she knew they were present in her brain.

Finally he shook his head. “You’re my relative, remember?”

“Your remote relative. You taught me how remote.”

“It would never work.”

“It might not. But it might. How do you know, if you don’t even try?”

“Crabbed age and youth—”

“Bullshit! You said that to me before, to point out why you and I couldn’t possibly work together. And we’ve worked together just fine, better than I’ve ever worked with anybody. I don’t want to hear another word of stupid old poetry from you—unless you can make it romantic poetry.”

He was standing up, brushing off sand, turning away.

She had offended him.

“Bey, wait! Don’t go.”

He reached out and took her hands in his, lifting Sondra easily to her feet. “I have to. You can come to the house with me if you like, or stay right here if you’d rather. I’ll be right back.”

“Why do you have to—”

“I’ve got to tell Robert Capman that I’m not going with him. Don’t you think we owe him at least that much?”

The communications center was still active, the display screen still turned on. But there was no sign of a Logian form within the imaging area.

“He’s gone.” Sondra stared at the control console as though expecting Capman to pop up out of the middle of it. “I can’t believe it. He said to take my time, there was no need to rush.”

“Because when he spoke to you he already knew he would be gone by the time that we got back.” Bey flipped to display the storage stack. “I thought so. New recorded message—and addressed to both of us. Here we go.”

Capman’s head and bulky upper torso were again filling the image area. If he was annoyed by the disappearance, first of Bey and then of Sondra, he showed no sign of it.

“The Logian reputation for perception is quite unwarranted, you know,” he said cheerfully, as soon as the display region had stabilized. “If I were really astute, Bey, I would have known your answer as soon as I saw that Sondra was with you for our conversation. That, and your and my shared tendency to masochism, should have sufficed. I can assure you that Saturn is great and the Logian form wonderful, and both statements are quite true. But you would rather remain on Earth and Mars, and bear those ills you have, than fly to others that you know not of.”

“I told you he just wanted you for chit-chat with him,” Sondra hissed. “Bey, he’s as bad with quotations as you are.”

“Shhh!”

Capman was continuing. “Remain there for the moment, that is. Next year, or the year after, who knows? The Logian form encourages a long perspective. I can wait. And if I am realistic, your presence on Earth and Mars will help to re-shape thinking about form-change better than you could do it on Saturn.

“As for you, Sondra Dearborn.” The great head turned toward her, as though even in a recording Capman knew just where Sondra would be standing. “You are young and perhaps incorrigible. But you have fire and courage and conviction. You do not allow yourself to be diverted or intimidated. The two of you will make an excellent team. And who knows? Perhaps Behrooz Wolf will yet bring you to enlightenment, and an appreciation of great literature.” The grey head bobbed in laughter. “But I won’t bet on it. And now I have work to do. I look forward to talking with you again in the near future. Both of you.”

A massive arm lifted. Luminous eyes flickered and danced with humor. And Robert Capman was gone.